There's this flowchart. It ticks me off.

[dagas_isa]

I has a rant.

This flow chart provokes in me an irrationally angry reaction.

That chart has 75* different "stereotypes" for female characters. In other words, pretty much any female character is going to fit onto that chart. Not a problem. You know because pretty much anyone will loosely fit into one archetype or another. But then there's tone in the article that implies that all of these 75 stereotypes (and the women they've chosen to represent, including Tsukino Usagi, Azula, Zoe Washburne, and Yoko Ono) are somehow representations of poorly done female characters. Yes, one of those is a real-life figure.

*facepalm*

I'm all for critical examinations of source material, but seriously? This is the kind of critique that says, "Hey, there's no right way to ever write women," and takes for granted men are more nuanced** because seriously, trying not to write a woman who calls to mind one of those tropes is well, a nightmare, and something of a useless effort.

Oh, and seriously, most male characters wouldn't even make it through the first gauntlet if someone decided to turn a critical eye to them, so why do people set that as a minimum standard for female characters? I don't even know. We already have so many rules and codifications for what makes a good female characters, why is this flowchart needed? And why is the point being proven in the accompanying blog post that somehow there is a lack of development/variety/nuance in female characters? Why don't male characters get the same level of examination?

I may be a touch bitter because it's the type of thinking displayed in the making and presentation of that flowchart that also seems to fuel the excuses for not wanting to read/write/watch female characters.***

*sigh*

This touched a huge sore spot.

---

* I counted. Even if I'm off, it's still a lot of archetypes/characteristics that are being painted as stereotypes. Also, if you're curious, 56 of those "stereotypes" don't even require a love interest.

**Oh, you do not want to hear me rant about much of a myth the "nuanced male character" is. Really.

*** I honestly have no problems with people preferring to focus on male characters, but it's definitely something I'd rather not see people not try to justify beyond "This is what I like," and how they personally relate to male and female characters.

ETA: I've been linked on the metafandom delicious. The text accompanying their bookmark is irrelevant and kind of hilarious.

Comments

[ladysugarquill]

Yeah, they lost me the moment they said Tsukino Usagi was a one-dimentional character.

Hmm, these people really need "Tropes Are Not Bad" linked at them. All I see are character types with mostly sometimes snarky labels, are those supposed to be bad? But I think the authors of that flowchart lost their point halfawy through...

Also, I *love* it how a female character is only "strong" if she's the bloody protagonist. So, there is ABSOLUTELY NO good secondary female characters? As in, they can't possibly exist? Which basically means that if you write a story with a male MC, ALL your female characters are shit. Yeah, I don't think so.

[dagas_isa]

So, there is ABSOLUTELY NO good secondary female characters? As in, they can't possibly exist? Which basically means that if you write a story with a male MC, ALL your female characters are shit. Yeah, I don't think so.

Honestly, I took the first question a lot more generously (not "does she carry a story on her own?" but "could she?" which would let a lot of secondary characters through the first question), but even then it's both impossibly vague (if you spend enough time with her PoV in mind and center evens around her, then even Hot Villainess Minion #2 probably could) and because in my favorite stories, no one character could because it's all about the ensemble.

Though if that's what they're saying that a female character can only be strong if she's a protagonist perhaps, "Hey! Write more stories about female protagonists!" would be more productive.

[sunnyskywalker]

I wasn't so generous :D Everything else was so cut and dried - "Does she do/have X?" - so I took "could she" as a sloppy way of saying, "does she, at some point, demonstrate that she can?" Which would also allow for this to work in ensemble casts if they sometimes take turns being the focus of episodes.

Writing more female protagonists would be great, along with female-all-the-other-roles! (Except maybe female dead victims; we aren't hurting for more of those.) Maybe someone can make a snappy flowchart of all the possible cool roles they could have.

[dagas_isa]

Writing more female protagonists would be great, along with female-all-the-other-roles!

This, so much. I'm not going to say that there aren't problems with how women are portrayed in fiction, but in general, I'm (mostly) okay with the variety of female characters that exist. I'm just not as pleased with how limited their "career opportunities" tend to be or how often those opportunities mean supporting a male character instead of getting their own stories.

Or in other words, the female characters don't need so much improvement as much as people just need to make better use of them.

[sunnyskywalker]

You can't be a villain and a strong female character either! That cuts out a lot of career opportunities. Which means, I guess, that if you wrote a story about a female villain with female minions versus a female protagonist with female sidekicks, you can STILL have only one strong female character. That doesn't seem remotely accurate. I'm strongly in favor of having more female protagonists, but that doesn't mean all other possible roles suck by definition.